Cashback Bubble Bursting?

July 16th, 2011 No Comments »

The golden age of cashback appears to be coming to an end. Why do I say this? Well it was only a few years ago, back in 2006 you could get ridiculous amounts of cashback for almost everything you purchased online. Using one of the many cashback websites such as Quidco, or my personal favourite TopCashBack, you search for a retailer and visit their website using the cashback site’s link. Then you buy something and depending on the agreement with that particular retailer you are given a lump of cash back.

You could get cash back on almost anything: car / home / life insurance, mortgages, bank accounts, credit cards, mobile phones and most of the major online and high street retail brands. Over the last couple of years I’ve watched the retailers leave slowly, including Swiftcover car insurance. Cashback rates have dropped too with average car insurance cashback at about £30 now compared to the £100 possible in previous years.

Don’t get me wrong here, it is still possible to get loads of cashback in certain cases. My recent mobile phone purchase netted me £120 cashback and there are many other hidden gems like that around, but on the whole, my cashback total is not climbing very quickly. I am at just over £900 since joining now and if it had climbed at a linear rate since I joined it would be double that. I’ve switched energy providers a couple of times and even moved my broadband, but there’s only so many times you can do this and be eligible for cashback.

My on-going statement still stands though – if you don’t have a cashback account you are throwing money away, so go and get one now. It’s worth having one now even if you don’t plan to use it straight away – that way it’ll be ready for when you do need it. Just click on one of the TopCashBack banner ads, or on this link to sign up now for free.

Online Cashback


Free Money*

April 28th, 2011 No Comments »

MSMoney*Not actual money, sorry.

When I say money, I’m talking about Microsoft Money the personal accounting package from Microsoft. I’ve been using this package since version 2.0 way back when I first started keeping a record of my finances in the early nineties and have upgraded a number of times over the years. Microsoft Money allowed me to keep full records of my bank accounts, details of all transactions in, out and between them, upcoming bills to pay and most importantly their relevance to a personal budget. I was able to set up budget categories and financial limits to those categories, and each transaction I enter in an account can be assigned to a budget category. You can then easily see how you are doing against each category with warnings issued if you are on track to go over budget. It’s been a very useful package and possibly the most valuable computer package I use. Anyway, the last version I used was Microsoft Money 2007 and sadly shortly after that release Microsoft cancelled the entire product range. Now, the product obviously still worked but I became worried that eventually a new version of Windows would be released and my old version of Money would no longer work leaving me without access to my accounts. I started to test out a few other packages which are freely available such as GnuCash, but none of them quite met my expectations, or lost details in the migration from Money. Then I came across Microsoft Money Plus “Sunset”.

As a final send-off for Money, Microsoft have released their Sunset version for free – see the Money Sunset page. I’m a bit behind the times here because this was released a few months ago, but I only discovered it a couple of weeks ago. The product itself is identical to the 2007 version as far as I can tell.

There are two versions available: “Deluxe” or “Home and Business”. Most people can make do with the Deluxe version, however if you require extra features for small business accounting then the Home and Business should help you with very basic invoicing too.

Anyway, the conclusion: If you own and use an old version of Microsoft Money then I’d suggest you upgrade to this version for free, but if you are thinking about digitising your accounts for the first time then you may want to consider alternative accounting software just in case Microsoft Money files become unusable on future versions of Windows.

Cashback Update – August 2010

August 5th, 2010 No Comments »

If you still haven’t signed up to a cashback site you are throwing money away… fact.
Online Cashback

Click on the above image and sign yourself up. You get cash back everytime you buy something online using their links. No catches – it doesn’t cost anything, they don’t take your money…. and they’ll pay it straight in to your bank account. My current cashback total stands at £661.32 so it really is worth your while signing up now ready for when you make your next purchase. If you are thinking of changing your gas / electricity supplier, new mobile phone contract, broadband, online grocery shopping, or the high paying credit cards, insurance policies or mortgages, then get yourself a cashback account first or you are throwing money down the drain!!!!

More darned expense…

November 20th, 2009 2 Comments »

Talking of things all happening at the same time, our washing machine packed up last night. I think it’s just the belt that’s gone as the drum doesn’t spin around any more and when you spin it manually it’s very loose and frictionless. Anyway, it is 7 and a half years old and the drying function packed in a few months ago too so it was on its way out and I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. The good thing to take from all of this is my experience of the Comet sales team – I placed an order online at about 7:15pm last night for a new washing machine for ‘collection from store’. at 7:40 I had a phone call telling me it was ready for collection! I drove there as quick as I could (which isn’t that quick in a Scenic I might add… it’s scary switching from the Celica to the Oli-bus especially when cornering) and was treated almost like royalty, bar the rejected upselling of the extended warranty which would have cost more than 2/3 the cost of the appliance itself. All the staff were smiling and polite, saying hello and goodbye and thanking me for purchasing there, and another friendly member of staff helped me load it in to the back of the car. I only wish they’d been there to help me unload it in to the garage as it’s bl**dy heavy. Oh well… I think that’s a new HD digital camcorder crossed off my to-buy list for next year now (sorry Em, looks like your wedding will be filmed completely in SD) but at least we now have a full line-up of Hotpoint white goods.

Update
Yes, I’m officially stupid. Having unwrapped the new washing machine, unplumbed the old one and moved it in to the garage and reworked the cold water supply ready for the new machine, I noticed the maintenance flap on the back of the old washing machine. I opened it up and see the belt lying on the bottom – it had just come off. took me 10 second to refit and position correctly. Darn it, I can’t take the new one back now. Arse biscuits with strawberrys and cream.

Festive Cashback

November 18th, 2009 No Comments »

It’s that time of year again, only 26 working days until Christmas. Everyone is tightening their purse strings this year and what better way to make sure you are getting even better value for money than by claiming cashback on your purchased gifts?  Just to gloat, I’ve attached my current cashback account totals below so you can see that the service is not a con. All you do is shop around online for the best price as you usually would, then once you’ve found it, visit Topcashback, search for the retailer you used and see if they offer cashback. If they do, excellent! Follow the link on the Topcashback site to the retailer and make your purchase. After a few weeks you’ll be able to request the cashback to be transferred to your bank account. And to make it even better, if you sign up through my special links here you will get an extra £1 for free once your account reaches £5.

Click here to visit Topcashback.co.uk and open your account.

topcashback-2009-11-18

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